Category Archives: Breaking Up

As this photos shows the crows are populating the trees now. A few trees still have leaves and watching them fall is still something I do was I walk. The wind is the biggest factor in that process and over the course of a week I see all types of winds resulting in sorts of fall patterns. Some leaves zip and race away from there high homes to the ground. While others flutter, twirl and drift down. The wind can effect the leaves on the ground too. Some tumble across my path and others skitter, bounce and jump, while there fellows cart wheel or roll away to be caught in hedges or cluster at the base of trees . Some times they stack against walls or sail across pools. Until we get a rain the dance will fill my walks.

For three days this week I was a part of the Open Studio work at the Schweinfurt Art Center.

There were six of us in the wet studio. Cris and Liz were at the tables near me. Liz and I learned a lot as we had never mixed dyes for our own use before. The really fortunate thing was two very experienced dyers were also in the wet studio, so we had great brains to pick. Pat the woman who I had as class instructor was there doing her own thing. And Maureen was also there dyeing. She was making yardage.

My buddy, Barbara was also in the wet studio dye painting silk scarves. She only got three done – but considering she had never done this before I am proud of her. I am also in love with the rich colors she achieved. This is my wall of work for the first day. Barbara, Liz and I really got the bug and will all do more on our own.

Folks were working in the sewing studio up stairs in the Schweinfurth too. Donna came down and showed us her newest paper piecing project. Looks like new garland for her tree this year. They were all working just as hard up stairs as we were in the basement. It was great fun. There was also a trunk show by my good friend Ruth at the Schweinfurth this week end. I saw some of her work I had never seen before. It was great.

Liz and I spent Thursday making more dye colors to use. We worked in her garage and mixed up six more colors to play with. I have fabric setting in buckets of water in my shower washing out the dye now. Good thing I vowed I would make a piece using some hand dyed fabric I had altered every month, and even that many not be enough to use all of this great stuff up. Even Liz looked at all the wonderful dye Ethel gave me and said “ you will go a lift time and not need to purchase any more dye.” This is some of the new fabric that I altered.

Progress Report: Taffy Pull

Taffy Pull44″ X 29″

After the quilt meetings last week I did a little rework of this piece. I also changed it’s orientation. Maureen suggested I pull some of the colors out into other areas and I like what happened when I added the thread work to the surface. I also intensified the blue lines. It is a stronger piece for the additions.

Butterflies for Ethel I am so very happy about this piece. It is the third and last in this series of Butterfly pieces. I used only fabric from Ethel’s stash that her children so generously gave to me. The title is part of my tribute. The butterflies are form the ground cloth as before. I also added several machine drawn butterflies to represent Ethel’s being gone from my life but still strong in my memories. No one can see memories- but they are still a strong part of me.

Breaking Up16″ X 30″

Breaking Up This quilt got started at QBL last summer. I was working on the thin line thing. I am feeling much more confident about controlling the width of those lines now.

Curvy Cut Project I did not really get any work done on this project. But I did make the eight leaf stamps to use on the surface. Hopefully I will get to that step this week.

New Work This is the start of my newest rock piece. I am going to try to work on and 18” X 24” scale for four pieces. So far I would say it is proving to be more of a challenge then I expected.

We are enjoying a wonderful bit of Indian Summer with mild temperatures and sunny days. Fall is here and some of the trees are striped of leaves. But many still are dressed in colors. I noticed as I was swishing through the leaves on the ground that trees tend to lose there leaves from the far ends of the branches first. That makes sense, just I had not paid attention to that detail before. I have managed to play a little of my favorite fall game of catch the falling leaves while walking. I also realized I get a lot of joy out of having an acorn or two in my pocket.

The week has been a full one. I visited Nancy at her home to see her newest lay out for her next quilt. She uses bold patterns and colors in a way that I so admire. I know it will go through many changes before she is done. Watching her process is great.

Last Friday I went to the opening of Quilt=Art=Quilts at the Schweinfurth. I was delighted by the fact that I knew so many of the quilters who were accepted into this show- seven to be exact. This shot shows Cheri with her work at the opening. I love these wonderful silhouetted works she is doing now.

At the QuIGs meeting Liz was full of news about her trip to The Barn a few weeks ago. She had a notebook that she had covered with her own treatment of Cantha. I like what she did. Sue Ellen brought us some raw cotton and cotton pods from her trip south. I really love the shapes of the pods.

The Diva’s meant on Tue too and folks had lots great things to share. I got a lot of help with my works in progress. That is one of the best things about the group.

Progress Report: Taffy Pull At one point last week I thought I was done with this work. But when I took my second look the day after in the low light of early morning- I realized it was not very strong. So I took to my meetings. That is the best part of showing my stuff to new eyes. I am now working on adding more color to this surface in the form of thread painting. It is helping.

Butterflies for Ethel I am to the quilting stage of this work too. It also went to my meetings without being completed. I had the butterflies attached with the sliver thread as I did the first two in this series but did not have what I felt was a strong enough ideas for the quilting that it needed to be complete. Again my fellow artists came through with lots of suggestions. Now I need to get going on the machine process.

Breaking Up I am to the quilting stage of this work that I started last summer at QBL. I was challenging myself to add slender lines to the surface and I think I was successful with that part of the idea.

New Curvy Cut Work I picked up lots of leaves on my walks this week too. So I decided I needed a place to print there images and this is what I built to do so. I will paint the leaves and hand stamp them on this surface.

New Work/Challenge I am off this week end to do some more fabric dyeing and so I looked through the stack of older dyed stuff. I decided I would challenge myself to do at least a quilt a month using some of the hand dyed fabric. In this photo my hand dyed/printed fabric in the center. I am not sure about the next step- but I am sure going to try.

Label Block TV news goes on every night and so does my work on these blocks. Keep Creating